Congressman decries regulatory hurdles faced by energy industry

Published 8:45 am, Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Oil field workers for Pioneer Natural Resources standing at a well that was being fracked on the Giddings Estate, an oil field south of Midland, Texas, Feb. 14, 2012. (Jim Wilson/The New York Times)

Oil field workers for Pioneer Natural Resources standing at a well that was being fracked on the Giddings Estate, an oil field south of Midland, Texas, Feb. 14, 2012. (Jim Wilson/The New York Times)

Photo: JIM WILSON

Congressman decries regulatory hurdles faced by energy industry

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Permian Basin oil and gas operators working through the economic challenges presented by $45 crude oil prices are well aware of the other challenge they face.

“This is the most unfriendly regulatory environment we’ve ever been in,” said Ben Shepperd, president of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association.

He listed regulations or proposed regulations from the Bureau of Land Management, Environmental Protection Agency and even the Texas Railroad Commission. Those regulations include emissions regulations, water regulations, hydraulic fracturing oversight and endangered species.

“We’re pushing back in areas we’ve never had to before,” he told PBPA members at the association’s monthly membership meeting Tuesday at the Petroleum Club.

U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, the Louisiana Republican whose New Orleans district includes the part of the state that’s home to deepwater oil drilling, noted how tours of offshore sites have become popular with elected officials. They marvel at the technology used and good-paying jobs offered to those graduating from high school, he said.

“Fracturing is a U.S.-made technology that has revolutionized the world. It’s brought manufacturers back to the U.S.,” he told his audience.

He said there is a revolution in the nation’s unconventional shales created by horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing.

“That’s not stopping bureaucrats from trying to figure out how to stop it,” he said.

He decried new emissions standards and the EPA’s proposed Waters of the U.S. regulations.

“Unelected bureaucrats wake up every morning thinking of new regulations. You wake up every morning trying to figure out how you’re going to make payroll and how you’re going to keep operating with these low oil prices. They get on a private plane to come tell you you should be using solar power,” he said.

He recounted touring a coal mine in Ohio recently and talking to young miners, many of them the latest in generations of miners.

“They truly fear for their way of life. This president said in 2008 he was going to bankrupt coal. Once he does that, he’ll come after natural gas and hydraulic fracturing. Look at the Keystone XL pipeline. Everyone supports it — labor supports it. It would bring billions in private investment and create jobs. Everyone supports it but a small group of radical environmentalists, and he’s sided with them.”

The good news is the recent shale boom has spread beyond the nation’s traditional oil-producing states, Scalise said.

“So many states are in the energy business now that hadn’t been, like Ohio. They’re seeing what were ghost towns (now are) booming. Like Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is forcing New York to debate allowing hydraulic fracturing. (New Yorkers) are seeing their neighbors working, making money. Seeing natural gas coming out of water faucets, all the movies with their hocus pocus. Hydraulic fracturing is safe as long as the states regulate it and they can regulate it well. Environmentalists are going around raising concerns but now people are asking tough questions they didn’t expect,” he said.

“There are other crazy ideas coming out of Washington” based on the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, he said. “We need to start sunsetting some of these laws on the books,” he said.

He told the gathering he was glad to have fellow congressmen, such as Midlander Mike Conaway, “who have worked in the industry and represent you and know what you face.”

Scalise, who supports lifting the 40-year ban on exporting domestic crude, predicted that legislation ending the ban would be passed and signed by the end of the year.